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Data Handling

In order to demonstrate that not ALL LabVIEW programs have to do with data acquisition and device control, the following example illustrates an application in pure data handling.

The goal of the software was to take an existing data set and convert to a very specific data format for a raytracing program used for calculating the efficiency of diffraction gratings. In order to ensure the correct orientation and alignment of the data, an immediate visual cfeedback was provided via 3-D Graph.

The VI accepts a few different file formats, each being converted upon loading to a meta-format. This meta-format is then analysed and re-calculated on-the-fly according to the parameters chosen be the user. Immediate feedback is provided visually, allowing for mistakes in the parameter set to be immediately recognised and corrected.

Specifics to the target file format were taken into consideration and the UI provides some "twea" options (min-width of any protruding structures) to reduce the occurrence of anomalies in the target file data set.

The code of the program follows the "Producer-Consumer" pattern which is current recommended practise for UI programming allowing relatively easily controllable, modular code making the software "politely" respond to repeated changes in requirements.